I put a post about about Abel and Hatch and as I figured, most love both reels. I LOVE my Hatch reels, but I think I may jump to Abel. Now lets face it, part of the fun of going with an Abel (we all know of their quality) is getting the finishes!

I will be looking into getting fish prints on the reels. The question is, do I get ported frames or solid? For fish prints, I think the solid looks better, but I have seen ported frames with fish prints and they looked sweet to.

What are your thoughts? I'm not concerned about the little extra weight of a solid frame.

I think the ported look better and are easier to clean. Abels are such a pain to take apart, I usually just rinse mine off real good. The solid frames always worries me that grit might be stuck in there. I also think the solid frames look a little clunky.

I mentioned in another recent Abel discussion that I was at the fly shop yesterday and was looking at many different Abels. Brown Trout HD, Wild Trout, Brook Trout and new GD real to name a few. Of those mentioned, the GD was the only one non ported. I can't imagine that reel done any other way. The fish prints look much better in person with porting than the do in any photo I've seen. That said, I like both ported and non ported versions. They're Abels and are all beautiful! I've had my eye on a Brook Trout finish for some time but after looking at the Wild Trout finish yesterday, it's got some stiff competition!

Of the 3 that I own, Super 4 is ported and 2 PT .5's are non ported. One is Matte and the Black Coral has a solid spool to go with the non ported frame.